Where Defeat Is Not An Option

Barack Hussein Obama

The basics of the world since the end of the Second World War – a few Great Powers with nuclear weapons counter-balancing each other while no major wars were allowed to get out of hand by the international community – is gone. The last few bits of it are being interred by Obama – his failed policies in general are doing it, but midwifing Iran’s nuclear program is the nail in the coffin.

I did a quick look around at Saudi Arabia’s military today and I noticed that some years ago, Saudi Arabia purchased some nuclear-capable medium-range ballistic missiles from China. They are of an old design, to be sure, but from all appearances, they’d work just fine – and they put all of Iran within range. And given the Saudi bank account, there is no telling what sorts of upgrades they’ve been able to purchase for the missiles. Meanwhile, there are rumors that Saudi Arabia has either already purchased some nuclear warheads or has an option to buy them from Pakistan, which got at least part of its nuclear research funding from Saudi Arabia. If Ikea had a nuke-mart, then Saudi Arabia has been shopping there – and all they have to do is insert tab B into slot A, and its all done. They’ll be a nuclear power probably within a very short time of Iran becoming one…if not sooner. And it appears that Saudi Arabia is in the market for some German submarines…the very same very high quality submarines Germany sold to Israel, and which are likely capable of being armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

Welcome to the new world, boys and girls – a world where regional powers are arming to the teeth and readying themselves for war because other regional powers are arming to the teeth and have aggressive intentions. How long before Poland decides it needs some nukes? Japan? The only thing which prevents any nation from getting them is money – do they have enough to buy the technology? Most nations do. Ready for a jittery, 30 year period where nuclear blackmail is considered part of the armory of diplomacy? It isn’t going to be pretty – and while one can’t entirely blame Obama for this, his eagerness to strike a deal with Iran is letting the genie out of the bottle for good.

1. You both want roughly the same thing, but there are some thorny issues involved which must be addressed before either of you can get it. Trade agreements and alliances against a third party are this sort of diplomacy.

2. You and the other guy want diametrically opposed outcomes and you’re both trying to force the other to climb down, with a risk of war ever present. This sort of thing comes up when two nations with a great deal of enmity are getting at loggerheads.

The first example is mostly harmless in that success doesn’t lead to universal peace and brotherhood, but failure also doesn’t come with much cost. It would be the rarest of rare birds if, say, a negotiation over a trade deal resulted in war breaking out between the two parties because they couldn’t come to an agreement on tariffs. On the other hand, the second form of diplomacy is fraught with danger because the whole point of negotiating is to try to prevent a war – both sides want something the other side cannot agree to. In negotiating, what they are really doing is trying to answer the question, “are you willing to fight over it?”.

In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877, Russia – victorious – was in a mood to just do as she wished with Turkish possessions…which then ranged deep into the Balkans of Europe and which were of great concern to other major powers. When Russia’s plans for prostrate Turkey became known, Britain, especially, let it be known that Russia’s plans were unacceptable and if not modified, war would result. The Germans, under Bismarck, held a conference of all interested parties in Berlin and to Bismarck fell the task of finding out if the British answer to the question was really, “yes”. Bismarck went at it for quite a long time against the British Prime Minister, Disraeli, trying to get out of him a “no”. At the end of it, Britain’s position was crystal clear and Bismarck, who was trusted by the Russians, let them know that if they persisted, they’d have a war with Britain, with incalculable risks that other nations would become involved. Russia, having got her “yes” from Britain, answered her “no” in reply…Russia didn’t want a war with Britain. They weren’t willing to fight over it. War was averted (well, strictly speaking, it was delayed…until 1914 when Russia started fishing in those same troubled waters…but, still, peace was achieved in the 1870’s which endured for decades). That is the sort of diplomacy we’re really thinking of when we think “diplomacy”.

Our liberals use the word diplomacy quite a lot – in fact, it is their magic talisman against all threats. All you gotta do is get some diplomacy going and everything can be made right. But what liberals don’t understand – refuse to understand – is that in the great international crisis, the question remains as always: are you willing to fight about it? If you are not willing to fight about it, then you will not get what you want. The other side, once sure you won’t fight, will just grab what they demanded – and then probably demand even more, just to see how far you can be pushed until the answer becomes “yes”, with the risk that they’ll miscalculate your weakness and thus provoke a war (this was Hitler’s problem in 1939 – he thought that after Munich he could take Poland without Britain fighting…he miscalculated…there was a lot of surrender in Neville Chamberlain, but not complete national abasement). In Obama’s Iran negotiations, what we are seeing are the results of one side thinking that negotiations are the end rather than the means – and they are viewed as an end, in themselves, because a person like Obama is fundamentally incapable of envisioning war resulting from failure.

Obama is going to get his agreement with Iran – which will be of no real value, because all Obama wants is the “agreement”…something on paper which says that peace and amity are secured. What actually happens is irrelevant – the agreement is all. This is diplomacy in a void – mere sound and fury, signifying nothing. I’ve watched a few MSM reports of late – forgive me for wasting my time – and they’re all, “there is only a few days left until the deadline”. Deadline? Deadline for what? Suppose we pass it – are we going to go to war? No. Impose new sanctions? No. Stop negotiating? No. We’ll just set a new deadline. Because we have to get an agreement – and, in fact, the current deadline, given Obama, means the pressure is on us. As we won’t do anything if the deadline is passed, it is up to us to get something on paper before the deadline arrives. The Iranians know this full well – and are taking advantage of it (their demand that all sanctions be lifted is a, “we know you won’t do anything, so give us all we want” ploy). At the end of the day, it would have been better all around if Obama had just unilaterally terminated the sanctions and entered into no negotiations, at all. Our overall position would be stronger – we could still, in theory, have a military option on the table, even if only as a wink and a nod to Israel, should they decide to strike. Now there is no military option, rumors that we’ve agreed to prevent even an Israeli strike, and an upcoming agreement which will commit us to removing sanctions without stopping Iran’s nuclear program. Obama is essentially going to make the United States the guarantor of Iran’s nuclear program – protected until fruition by an “agreement”…and once complete, impossible to reverse because you can’t ever force a nation to give up nuclear weapons.

My view is that Obama doesn’t understand this – he has shown over time that he understands very little about how the world works. Combine this with a set of liberals in his Administration who are likely convinced that Iran is only an enemy because of bad American actions, and you’ve got the impetus for one of the most astoundingly stupid foreign policy programs in human history. Obama is going to redeem Neville Chamberlain – after Obama gets done with Iran, people will be able to look back and say, “well, at least Chamberlain didn’t actually arm the Germans”.

How this mess is to be cleaned up remains to be seen – if Iran tests a nuclear weapon before 1/20/17, there will be no way for us to really do anything. We’ll just have to wait for the inevitable Iranian collapse – their fertility rate is below replacement level and corrupt, dictatorial governments are really never too long for this world. The USSR showed probably the maximum length of time such a thing can endure before it implodes. But this could mean several decades of a nuclear-armed Iran causing massive trouble around the world. If Iran doesn’t get a nuke before Obama leaves office, then the next President will have to make stopping Iran the first priority of foreign policy – and we’d better be loud and clear that our answer is “yes” to the question, or we’ll just be wasting our time.

Our liberals have insta-amended the Constitution – now, instead of treason being defined as adhering to America’s enemies or levying war against the United States, it is now defined as “writing a letter Obama doesn’t like”. Our liberals have gone very deep into Deal Leader devotion on this.

The letter, itself, is not much – just noting to Iran’s leadership that any deal made with President Obama will not be held binding on future American Presidents. That is just a statement of fact – because if Obama does get a treaty, then it is a dead letter unless ratified by the Senate, which simply will not happen. If Obama gets some sort of executive agreement, then it is something which has no force of law and the next President can ignore at will (and likely will ignore because no President – not even Hillary – is going to want to be bound by what Obama did 2009-2017). To me, this was a wise thing to do – we don’t want the Iranians thinking that the entirety of the United States is whatever Obama says it is – he’s gone in less than two years and other people in the United States have other ideas. Indeed, enough people have other ideas to ensure that no treaty negotiated by Obama regarding Iran’s nuclear program has any chance of ratification (this is because Obama’s ideas on how to deal with Iran are so mind-bogglingly stupid that even a lot of liberal Democrats won’t sign off on them). But, a lot of liberals are just beside themselves over the Republican letter.

It is best seen, so far, with the #47Traitors hashtag on Twitter. Yes, they are really calling the Republican signatories traitors! I guess their memories don’t stretch back even to 2007 when then-House Speaker Pelosi went to the Middle East in an essay of foreign policy in direct contravention of Bush Administration foreign policy. I won’t even bother with the Democrats’ 1984 “Dear Commandante” letter to the communist dictator of Nicaragua, nor Ted Kennedy trying to work with the Soviets to defeat Reagan in the 1984 election; anything prior to, say, 2000 is ancient history and not at all relevant.

What I think is making the liberals really mad here is that the letter exposes the hollowness of Obama. Obama cannot get anything concrete done – everything he does especially in his last two years is subject to immediate reversal by whomever takes over on January 20th, 2017. And, rely on it, a very large amount of Obama’s actions will be immediately undone after he leaves office. Why should any President – even a liberal President – just keep an Obama order alive? Out of respect for Obama? Please. Liberals are in a shrieking conniption fit because they just got told that their Dear Leader is actually not all-powerful.

Matt and I have been busy and we rather blame Obama for this – keeping up with the ongoing disaster has been a trial, but we’ve been willing to do the work:

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I read today that we’re to start negotiating Russia’s position in eastern Ukraine. Coming on the heels of Obama’s decision to open up to Cuba and recent remarks about how Obama would like to normalize our relations with Iran, we now know who has benefited most from Obama’s foreign policy: Russia, Cuba and Iran. That all three nations are enemies of the United States is not a bug in Obama’s policy: it is a feature.

To an academic liberal like Obama – ie, someone ignorant of the actual history of the world – these nations aren’t really our enemies. They were forced into opposing us because of our wrong-headed, racist and imperialist policies. Had we just not been rat bastards to these people in days gone by, they would be our friends. Obama has set out to correct this problem – and true to liberal prescriptions, the solution is for us to surrender…because by doing so we are merely surrendering our ill-gotten gains. Once such surrender is consummated, these so-called enemies will be our friends and partners in making a better world.

For Cuba, the enmity stems from our support for corrupt and cruel governments of the past, made worse by our embargo and other oppressive measures. For Iran, it was because we – all by ourselves, with no Iranian input, at all – overthrew an allegedly democratic Iranian government in the 1950’s. For Russia, it was because we kept trying to push NATO to the east, thus threatening Russia’s security. Had we just backed Castro at the start, helped overthrow the Shah of Iran and kept our nose out of places like Poland and Estonia, all would be well. Obama is going to fix all this – and any of us who point out the absurdity of it all will just be put down as old-fashioned, racist hate-mongers who want enemies so we can get defense contracts, or some such nonsense.

In the end, what Obama will actually do – though he and liberals like him will never understand it – is massively empower bitter enemies of the United States, much to the detriment of freedom in the world and America’s position in it. Cuba’s communist regime will get a new lease on life – and China better watch out because ruthlessly exploited Cubans can make cheap consumer goods just as well as ruthlessly exploited Chinese, and as they are much closer to the United States, the price will be less for Cuban crap than for Chinese crap. Russia will gain recognized dominance over most of its old Empire…and will try to push outwards more and more. Iran will become predominant in the Middle East and pressure will mount ever higher for us to cut Israel adrift rather than try to fight all of Islam to save her (our liberals grow to hate Israel…when push comes to shove, they’ll turn a blind eye to slaughter). Great job there, Barry – Neville Chamberlain got nothing on you.

What it also means is that anyone looking for an alliance won’t look towards us – we’re demonstrating that if you rely on us, you’ll be thrown overboard at the first opportunity. As soon as we find a tyrant who wants something, we’ll hand you over and call it a “reset” of relations. Small, weak nations will now try to make the best deal they can with tyrannies…this will prove especially crucial in places like Vietnam, Taiwan and Philippines…who in any of these nations would actually think in 2014 that an American army or fleet will be on their way when the tigers start to prowl?

Obama’s successor – either fellow nitwit academic Hillary or whomever the GOP nominates – will inherit a world which will be quite a mess. No one who possibly likes us will trust us, no one who hates us will be in any fear. We’ll be quite alone – and rather disarmed as Obama has cut the size of our military dramatically. Adding to the bad news, we’ll be $20 trillion in debt with a lot of short-term notes coming due at a time when interest rates are likely to be rising. I do wonder, seriously, if any of the contenders for the White House really understand what a difficult problem Obama will be leaving them…even if on January 20th, 2017 we’re not in a hot war or actual recession? I think if they did, hardly any of them would make a try for it. We’re going to need someone of the stature of Washington or Lincoln to get us through – someone who will be willing to work themselves to death, just to repair the worst of the damage. It won’t be an Obama-like time of vacations, golf outings and people checking your NCAA brackets.

But, Obama won’t care – he’ll go to his grave believing that he fixed everything. When things go smash – likely after he is out of office – he’ll blame his successors for not being as smart as he was. His acolytes in the MSM will also never question what was done, and will lay all blame on whomever gets stuck with the White House (you sure you really want that, Hillary?). Obama will be rich, well guarded and living among the elite of the elite for the rest of his days…the much poorer people who will have to play in blood and treasure to fix his mistakes won’t even be on his mind.

As those who read this little blog regularly know, I’ve been in favor of amnesty since 2007. Let me recap why:

Given the large number of illegal immigrants we have in this nation and the long period of time many millions of them have resided here, it is just not practical nor merciful nor just to deport them all. It is not practical because that many people would take massive resources to detect, arrest and move back to their home nations (they aren’t all from Mexico, after all). It is not merciful because ripping people from homes they’ve lived in for years is just not something that I, as a Christian, could ever support. It is not just because, in the end, we invited these people in. Sure, it was with a wink and a nod. Sure, many people have long been opposed and some tried hard to change the system – but on the whole not only was no real effort made to get them out, but plenty of efforts were made to entice them in.

Because of all that, I have favored amnesty – my basic idea was that if a person has been here for a number of years (5, 7, take your pick) without breaking any laws other than (a) crossing the border and (b) those laws which an illegal has to get around to stay here, then I figure we should allow them to stay. No fines. No going to the back of the line. Just have them come forward boldly and accept their green cards. If they stay a further five years and go through the citizenship process, then they become citizens…if they don’t, then back home, indeed, they go (I don’t want a class of people in this nation who refuse to become citizens – become American, or go back home). Anyone who has been here less time who is a criminal will be immediately deported (if not jailed for their crimes), those who have no criminal background will be provided with funds for transportation back to their place of origin, plus a bit extra – I’d want to entice such people to come forward for what amounts to voluntary deportation. That is the amnesty. Now, on to the rest of it:

The reason we have had all these illegals coming here is because our Ruling Class wants them here – those most concerned with politics were looking for a permanent underclass who could be bribed via welfare to vote Democrat; those most concerned with economics were looking for a permanent underclass who could be made to work for less than their labor is worth (I’ll never forget that time I saw illegals working on house construction on Christmas Day…no American would ever agree to that; but Big Corporation has no problem with a sub-contractor hiring illegals who can be made to work on Christmas…). If we are to amnesty, then we must make certain that the injustice of importing a political and economic underclass is never, ever repeated. And that means very strict border security – border security both in the sense of making the border physically secure, but also coming down like two tons of bricks on anyone who crosses the border illegally and, more important, on anyone who employs – directly or by the ruse of using a sub-contractor – illegal labor. I’m talking 6 months in jail for the illegal, 10 years in jail for the employer (6 months in jail is quite enough punishment to deter illegals who aren’t coming across for criminal activity – it just won’t be worth it for them to make the attempt in service of the goal of money-making if they’ll spend 6 months in jail making no money).

All Obama did yesterday – aside from a bit of Constitution-shredding – is do the bidding of the political race-baiters and those business elements who want cheap labor. It isn’t just or merciful – its a bit of liberal nonsense dressed up in false words of morality. Obama has ensured that the scam continues – and, worse, because now without border security, another 12 million are already lining up to come here, to be the drudges of labor, and the eventual votes for a corrupt political party. After having 24 hours to ponder over it, I’ve found that I am very angry over the whole thing. Disgusted. Nauseated that a President of my nation could do such a cynical, horrid thing and then claim that he’s on the moral high ground.

We’ve got our work cut out for us, good people. We do have to undo Obama. It can be done – but let us keep eyes on the prize. Don’t get distracted. Victory in 2016 is where we can start to restore our Republic, not in getting in a dog fight with someone like Obama. We must endure him for a bit more than two years – that is all.